


More Like A Relapse

by Imagining_Fantasy



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Canon Related, Cape Town au, Crying, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, M/M, POV First Person, Relationship Study, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 04:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15573285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagining_Fantasy/pseuds/Imagining_Fantasy
Summary: [10:09] Ryan: you can’t run forever[10:10] Ryan: i made a mistake okay[10:13] Ryan: where the hell are you?[10:16] Ryan: nevermind. just ignore me. i don’t careYeah, sure, he didn’t care. He didn’t care so much that he sent fifteen texts and called four times.///(or Cape Town is all that it’s been talked up to be and then some)





	More Like A Relapse

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been wanting to write this for years, and since I felt confident enough in my writing ability to convey the proper emotions, and the amount of time this would require, this was written in the span of a couple days. 
> 
> Thank you to Elia for being a constant supporter. 
> 
> On that note, enjoy.

The show was over. And so was my brittle, perfunctory patience.

 

As the crowd gave us their approval and thundered the loudest collective sound imaginable, I thanked them in four words, dropped the microphone onto the dirt-coated stage, and stormed off the stage leaving an innocent stare, a sympathetic nod, and a silenced husk behind.

 

Crew and others gravitated towards me backstage, chattering about our album and the “fantastic show, really.” I shoved a squawking photographer who got a little too close into an amp, my hackles raised. If our tour manager had anything to say about it, he didn’t express it to me, rather choosing to help up the protesting photographer and lead him out with a guiding hand. He shot a concerned, pointed look my way, and I mindlessly flipped him off.

 

I slammed the door of the dressing room as hard as I could just for the hell of it, not giving a damn who ran into it or if the door frame broke. The point at which I was worried about everyone else’s well-being was far behind me, buried under layers of venom, spite, and masked hurt. Maybe not so masked, given Spencer had been trying to reason with me for weeks. I was done. Done with trying, done with arguing until I could barely sing anymore, done with chasing a daydream I was foolish for even letting myself imagine in the first place.

 

Done with him.  

  
  
“Brendon!” my diplomat shouted from behind the door. “Come on, man! Just _talk_ to me.”

  
  
“Fuck off!” I responded in kind, burying myself even further into the tattered dressing room sofa that we had insisted on keeping, to the vehement protests of our roadies.

  
“This can’t last forever,” Spencer said, exasperated. “You have to, like, do something or management is going to have to step in.”

 

“Good. I’ll be waiting for their call,” I spat, glaring into a random hole in the wall, imagining it had a crappy haircut shaped by acrylic nails, and glassy amber eyes. My hands clenched, remembering the way they gripped _His_ shirt as I shoved him out the door and into the hotel hallway with that stained, patterned carpet. They remembered the vibrations from the screams that escaped my throat, powerful enough to send tremors down my spine.

  
  
“Please open the door, dude. Please,” he begged, chipping away at my resolve. “You don’t have to say anything, just let me in. I’m the only one here, I promise.”

  
  
I swiped at my eyes and blinked rapidly, a denial of the tears building up there. The door, even though I didn’t really care, I found was not broken, and swung open with a tug. Spencer’s eyes were surrounded by circles so dark they could have been mistaken for bruises. In a way they were, being a reflection of the battering he’d received as a messenger between two sides of a war that I was too depleted to continue. I couldn’t last in attrition, and the enemy knew that. They knew my every move, every strategy and tactic. And maneuvering around me was too easy, really, because all one had to do was shoot me right in the chest. Sounded difficult, but it had happened anyway.

  
  
Spencer prevented me from darting away with a consoling grip on my shoulder, and he yanked me into a suffocating hug, exhaling over my right shoulder. I sniffled, wincing as the droplets escaped my eyes and rolled down my face into his jacket. His fingernails grazed over my back, putting a sliver of warmth back into my core. He knocked the door shut with his heel. My knuckles turned stark white as they gripped his back like a lifeline, searching for a direction, a lighthouse, anything to learn where to go from here.

  
  
“I-“

  
  
“I know,” Spencer interrupted, his voice wobbling and hanging on by a weak thread. “I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry. If I had known-“

  
“It’s not your fault,” I choked, shaking my head vigorously. “It’s not your job to clean up messes, you know.”

  
  
“I could say the same thing to you,” he murmured, giving me a look so full of shame it triggered another round of tears. At this point crying was something I didn’t have enough willpower to silence. Sure, I’d put on a brave face for the cameras, but Spencer could see right through me, he always had. I wore my heart on my sleeve if I was comfortable enough to uncross my arms.

  
  
Eventually we broke apart, limbs retreating to our bodies as if escaping a wildfire. His face contorted into nausea as he fully absorbed the disgusting mess I had worked my way into. I held the back of my neck, turning my face so my tears weren’t as obvious. He huffed out another sigh and I nodded in agreement, chuckling wetly until it cut off with another unintentional sob.

  
  
“Do you want me...” he trailed off, taking in my state of mind. “I can talk to him if you want. He’ll probably listen to-”

  
  
“No,” I protested, then inhaled shakily. “You’ve done enough already. I can-“ I swallowed the lump in my throat, “I can do it if the label needs me to. The band comes first to me I swear, I just-”

  
  
“Shut the hell up right now.” He held up a hand and shuttered his eyelids. “There’s no way I’m gonna let you do that. I’ll talk to Zack and see if there’s...any options here.”

  
  
“You’re not talking about breaking up, right?” My pulse thrummed in my ears, the pace picking up as each anxiety-fueled, grim prediction of the tabloids once they heard about this formed. They ran along the lines of “Panic! at the Disco Breaks Up After Only Four Years and Two Albums,” or even better yet, “Brendon Urie’s Public Meltdown: A Recap.”

 

His gaze landed on anything besides me. “I’m not saying that. Just...maybe we should consider taking a break. We all need time off.”

 

I barked out a laugh so mocking and spiteful that it was almost painful to do in Spencer’s direction. He was only trying to provide some optimism. But in reality, even an optimistic outlook on all of this was enough to make anyone wince. “Do you really think a _break_ is going to fix this? Yeah, right. The fact that we can still perform together, let alone talk to each other, is a miracle in of itself.”

 

“A break would _start_ to fix this,” Spencer reiterated, pinching the bridge of his nose. “God, Bren, what do you want me to say? That the band should just call it quits and there’s no way to salvage the best goddamn thing that ever happened to us?” He glared when I scoffed, the first time he wasn’t influenced by his unending pity for me. “I know you’re hurting right now, we all are, but,” he snapped his fingers in front of my face to make me look up, and when I did his expression was warm, but sternly diplomatic, “I also know you’d be miserable doing anything else.”

 

I didn’t say anything. He was right. Maybe I just didn’t want to give anyone satisfaction right now. If I had to be miserable, so did everyone else. Fuck it. Juvenile, I was aware, but everything was already wrecked beyond repair so who cared if I threw in some of my own rubble.

 

If this was half the rage that went into writing _I Write Sins_ , then I understood why everyone was so fascinated by its heat. Before, love was the most intense and devastating emotion I knew of, as I had seen people burn bridges and sacrifice everything, all in the name of love. Now anger reigned. It was unstable nuclear fusion to love’s gentle sun rays. Love might have demanded tribute, but rage? Rage sought it out with no end in sight.

 

“Talk to Zack,” I clipped, turning away from him completely and squaring my shoulders. “And tell him I’m going out, and I don’t care if I get recognized - I need air.”

 

He didn’t answer, instead only the sound of the door opening and closing again gave me my confirmation. The picture I had been subconsciously staring at was of Jim Morrison, and I smiled sadly when my mind hummed to a somber melody, _“Deliver me from reasons why, you’d rather cry, I’d rather fly.”_ I pretended those words were random, though they were the furthest from. His stern regard and clenched jaw sent a clear message, challenging me to say he was anything other than fervent. Those five years between his eternal twenty-seven and my tender twenty-two felt ever smaller under his fixed gaze that whispered I really wasn’t too far away from a bathtub in Paris.

 

Fuck. I needed air.

 

For my own sake, I forced myself to look away and leave the dressing room, my disheveled hair and puffy eyes in the mirrors surrounded by twinkling light bulbs not fazing me in the slightest.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

The city was as sparse as it was dry. All of the plant life drooped toward the ground, browned by months of drought. The cool night air was enough for me to zip up my jacket, my hand brushing the phone in my pocket that likely was full of messages and missed calls that could only be from one person. I stopped in front of a small pond, frozen in my thoughts. Cars whipped past behind me, honking angrily at each other to go faster, to pay attention. My hair was already a mess, but the wind blew it straight into my face again. It smelled like his cologne, which meant I hadn’t showered in days.

 

A woman pushed past me on the sidewalk, gave a half-hearted apology, and continued on her way. I wondered who she loved; if they were worried for their girlfriend who was coming back at ten at night. I wondered if the demons in her closet were as cruel as mine. My hands curled in my pockets, and I felt a small piece of paper. I thought I had thrown it away. I took the paper out and pulled it apart, smoothing out the crinkles. The words were scratched out in blue pen and meaningless to an untrained eye who didn’t know how he curved every “l” and “e”, and the microscopic size of each “r”, as if the letter that begun his name wasn’t significant at all.

 

_Don’t need a passport_

_I’m always home with you_

_My mind took_ _too long_ _awhile to sort_

_You waited patiently in the morning dew_

 

I rolled it into a tight ball, crushing the cheap words in my trembling fingers, then chucked it into the pond and watched it poetically sink to the bottom. It didn’t relieve the hollow feeling in my gut, but the weight of it was gone.

 

My jacket smelled like him too, which wasn’t that surprising given we traded- used to trade clothes more than we conversed. I don’t know why he did it, but I definitely know why I did. It was stupid, I could see that now, trying to pretend everything was more than it actually was, but once again, love made people act like idiots.

 

A girl I met last year resurfaced in my memory. Her eyes were crystal blue, and her laugh made everything seem alright for a little while. I was completely and utterly fascinated by her. She was the first one I thought could actually help me move on, get over myself and let go of him. But, just like him, she was already blissfully happy with somebody else. I recollected the sight of her stepping off the tour bus, quiet apology on her lips and dyed hair falling around her shoulders.  He came up behind me and offered a pitying pat on the back. I laughed and shrugged it off, made a self-deprecating joke to change the subject, to distract from how deep in I really was. If only he knew how metaphorical that encounter was; it would’ve provided him with all the cheesy lyrics he ever wanted.

 

I hailed a taxi with a sharp whistle and a wave of my arm.. The crowds were thinning and hunched figures emerging from alleys and run-down buildings, and if I got recognized or pick-pocketed things would turn to shit fast. The last thing I needed was a fan coming up to me right now, because I was going to be an asshole to them and I swore never to let someone down like that. God, everything was so fucked up. I got into the cab, and if the driver’s perplexed expression said anything, it was that I appeared just as mangled as I felt. Rattling off the hotel address and leaning back into the weathered seat, I looked out the window, seeing the buildings and street lamps, but not really taking them in. The driver raised his eyebrows when I told him how far away I had to go to get back to the festival venue, but I handed him a thick wad of rand and he took it and shrugged, stepping on the gas.

 

The phone in my pocket was gaining weight the longer I neglected it, and eventually my curiosity toward it won over my resilience, and I slipped it out and powered it on. As soon as the screen came to life it started vibrating with dozens of text messages. No calls from Zack, so Spencer didn’t forget to warn him about my idiotic escapade. There were a couple texts from Jon, most inquiring or pretty passive. He was probably high. I looked down at the name that made my head spin and forced myself to open his messages.

 

_[10:09] Ryan: you can’t run forever_

 

_[10:10] Ryan: i made a mistake okay_

 

_[10:13] Ryan: where the hell are you?_

 

_[10:16] Ryan: nevermind. just ignore me. i don’t care_

 

Yeah, sure, he didn’t care. He didn’t care so much that he sent fifteen texts and called four times. If I had learned anything about Ryan in the years I’d known him, it was that he was a fucking brilliant liar. His way with words wasn’t merely a vessel for creating lyrics, it was also an artifice if he so desired. With his deadpan tone and steady eyes that revealed nothing to the beholder, he could tell someone the sky was red and they’d probably believe him; even though I watched him blatantly lie to his father, ex-friends, and ex-girlfriends, I thought for some stupid reason I was exempt from it.

 

I believed him too. Look where it got me. I should have known I wasn’t any different to him.

 

As I typed out a reply, I deleted several choice words that would’ve made my mother slap the shit out of me, and resisted asking the obvious question: _why?_ I allowed myself to be sanctimonious for once, and only tapped a solemn and clipped sentence.

 

_[10:42] You: had your chance, talk to S if you need something, but leave me alone_

 

I powered off the device, left the ringer on, stuffed it back into my jacket pocket, and imagined the thousand different ways he might respond. He probably wouldn’t, unless he was in a particularly vindictive mood. The oncoming anxiety was inexorable, which didn’t help my foot that was tapping so rapidly it might burn a hole in the car floor along with the ones from discarded cigarettes. For a brief moment I considered picking one up and lighting it, if only to get my hands to stop shaking, but there were things I desperately needed right now and smoking wasn’t one of them. I wish it were that simple.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

When I got back to the venue and stepped out of the cab, Jon was standing outside the backdoor smoking a joint, mouth held in a rigid line. Hoping he would just let me through the door, I reached for the door handle, but he gently held my wrist and let out a defeated sigh.

 

It was scarily similar to Spencer’s reaction, and different in the most important ways. Where Spencer was optimistic and giving his all to mold us back into one unit, Jon could see the crumbling foundations and clearly wasn’t trying to salvage them. Maybe it was because he wasn’t losing a best friend, or that he’d only been in the band a couple years; nevertheless he obviously just wanted answers before he could move on for good. Jon didn’t do anything halfway, that was for sure.

 

“What?” I swallowed, hating the way my voice caught.

 

“You know what.” He released my wrist and leaned against the door, forcing me to take a step back and make eye contact with him through the halo of smoke. “Spencer has clamped down on telling me anything, and Ryan hasn’t spoken in three days. He sang and talked to the crowd at the show, but that’s not real, y’know? A-And I don’t know what’s going on, and I need to know.” He frowned, “I have a right to know.”

 

“Yeah. You’re right. You do.” I nodded, wanting to feel guilty but too tired to tap into anything. “I can, uh, explain to you inside, I guess. It’s- It’s a lot.”

 

“If it’s enough to make Spencer shut up, then yeah, I can attest to that.” Jon was trying to make me more comfortable, knowing I had the unfortunate habit of revealing too much information as soon as I considered someone a friend. I don’t think I ever really opened up to him in any meaningful way. Sure, I had a million stories of our adventures and his drunken mistakes, but our friendship lacked a key component which was trust. It was not because he was a difficult person to trust, I often trusted too easily, it was simply that any deep conversations we had were aided by pot and booze then forgotten the next morning.

 

I opened the door and brought him to a makeshift lounge area for one of the many bands stuffed into the back of the venue. Nobody was there besides a woman with her headphones in and laser-focused on her laptop, her fingers tapping out a beat onto the couch. I figured she wouldn’t mind me spilling my guts right in front of her, and sat down the farthest away I could on another couch. Jon collapsed next to me and put out his joint on a the coffee table’s ashtray, reassuring me he was moderately serious. My heartrate was picking up again, threatening to jump out of my throat. I didn’t want to repeat any of this ever again. It was so ugly and dirty and I wanted to run from it until I dropped dead from exhaustion. I knew I would deal with this for years to come. Interviewers and fans all prodding to get the poisonous truth from my mind.

 

“Um, so you know how he and Keltie broke up a couple months ago?” I said quietly, and for a second I didn’t know if Jon even heard me. He raised an eyebrow and nodded. “And you know how he moved in with Spence and I? Well, uh, some things came up that I thought would never come to light and, fuck-” I cut off. Just accessing these memories was painful, which I always thought was a myth that only melodramatic people cried about, but now it was here and no sad song could help me.

 

“What do you mean?” He asked gently, face so blissfully ignorant I wanted to steal it for my own. “That you two secretly hate each other? Ryan has another family in Alabama? What?”

 

“Is it really that hard to figure out?” I whispered, wringing my hands in my lap. “Listen, all you need to know is it happened and-”

 

“No, Brendon.” Jon shook his head. “Don’t give me that. Tell me the truth.”

 

The truth. Nobody ever wanted the truth, they wanted their desires, their fantasy. If people wanted the truth they wouldn’t have reacted to every phenomenon with a conspiracy theory, there wouldn’t be movies that drew up perfect little love stories for people to eat up, and everyone would fucking panic because nobody actually knew what the hell they were actually doing. The truth was terrifying and Jon should’ve known better than to seek it. But if he insisted then so be it.

 

“I’m in love with him, Jon ” I smiled sadly. Love shouldn’t be this sad. It should be beautiful and exciting and new. Nobody ever told you what to do when you fell in love with the wrong person.

“Oh.” He didn’t know, I could tell. It was surprising to me. On stage, I chased after him like a lost puppy, with blind adoration and desperate want. Everyone could see it, except the people closest to me. To them it was all a joke, a gag I put on for the crowds. In reality, everything I felt was out in plain sight, hidden but so obvious to the right eyes. “Wow. How, uh, how long?”

 

“Have I known? Fuck.” I winced, refusing to look away from a speck on the floor. “Years, at least. In the beginning… I thought it was just infatuation. He was this confused intellectual with a habit for bad relationships, and I was just a kid who wanted to get away from his family. It got worse over time,” I bit the inside of my cheek to hold back a sob, “a-a-and I didn’t realize how deep in I was until I couldn’t pull myself out again.”

 

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, face not sickeningly pitying, but empathetic and consoling. I leaned into the touch, the warmth a welcome change. If he was murmuring words of comfort, my ears didn’t register them; the ringing was deafening. Jon was solid and smelled like pot and peppermint. It wasn’t the same as Ryan, but it was the closest thing to, and even though I knew it was stupid to cling onto the idea of him, letting go wholly right now would break what little resolve I had left.

 

“So he found out?”

 

“Not exactly,” I shrugged, fiddling with my jacket zipper. “Uh, I, you see-”

 

“It’s okay,” Jon interrupted, scratching the back of my head. “That’s enough. I don’t want to force you to say something you don’t want to talk about. I think I can piece it together.”

 

“I don’t want you to piece it together,” I protested. I didn’t want him to see me as the idiot who went and fell for his best friend, or who ruined the band because he couldn’t keep his impulses in check. Hopeless romantic who got his heart broken wasn’t much better, but I’d much rather have him pity me than hate me.

 

“There are some things that are meant to be buried,” he muttered. My stomach dropped to the floor and bile rose in my throat. He couldn’t be more right. No one would ever know about this, no one ever could. This would be the skeleton in our closet that we’d take to the grave. “Only you know what you’ve got to do.”

 

“I’m sorry,” I said after realizing I hadn’t even apologized for causing all of this yet.

 

“I don’t think this is your fault.” His eyes were far away, likely remembering every lyric I ever handed to him that was full of pining and the taboo. “Don’t...just don’t become everything they ask of you, alright? When this is all over they’re gonna want you to be bitter, they’re gonna want you to shit talk and burn bridges. Just promise me you won’t hate him.”

 

“I couldn’t ever hate him.” That was my problem, after all. Too dedicated, expecting too much, never seeing the worst of him that crept up behind me while I was absorbed in his copper irises.

 

“Alright.” He turned to face me, and for the first time I could see that this was getting to him. A tiny tear escaped the corner of his eye and he didn’t acknowledge it so neither did I.

 

We talked for a few minutes about the show and how the crowd was feeling about the new stuff, the girl on the other couch gathered her stuff and left, and then suddenly Jon locked up, his head snapping forward. When I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, I followed his gaze and Ryan was standing only ten feet away, hands in his pockets and hair in his face. The silence overtook the crashing sounds of a band warming up in the next room. My vision tunneled and I forgot how to breathe properly. Ryan always took my breath away, but now my lungs were compressed by fear, not affection. Though I supposed I had had trouble differentiating between the two in the past, anyway. Jon shifted so I wasn’t in his embrace anymore and I almost whimpered at the loss; I was on my own now.

 

Ryan looked so small. Not skinny or skeletal like he usually did, just small. He looked as small as I wish I was at the moment, so I didn’t have to face him again.

 

Jon pushed himself to his feet, gave me one last look I only understood as reassurance, then retreated into whatever place he hid after every show. Nobody really knew where he was until the bus was ready to leave.

 

Ryan approached me, taking short steps and maintaining his hunched posture that probably brought him down to my height. He stopped out of arm’s reach, as if I was a magnet with poles facing the wrong way. Well then, I wasn’t the one who was going to give in first.

 

“I didn’t see you after the show,” he said, still not meeting my eyes.

 

“I went to the city.” I crossed my arms; it was more like holding my stomach so it couldn’t sink any lower. “Needed some air. Though I guess a city isn’t the best place to get it. Uh, yeah. You know what I mean.”

 

I winced. Why was I acting like this? If anything I should’ve been summoning the screams I launched at him that night, or at least giving him the silent treatment. It’s what he deserved. Whatever. Treating Ryan better than he deserved was a habit I was too resigned to break at this point.

 

I sighed, frowning. “I thought I asked you to leave me alone.”

 

“You did.”

 

“And you’re still here. Because, what, you wanted to do this all over again?”

 

“I-” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.”

 

“Good for you.” I got up and stepped into his space, his cologne that covered my jacket filling my nose.

 

“What do you want from me?” Ryan said brokenly, hands reaching out and then falling back again. I remembered the feel of his skin, and for a weak moment I almost caved in. God knows what would’ve happened had I caved.

 

He was so, so confused and he was looking for answers I couldn’t give him. I’d already given him everything I knew - everything I had. It wasn’t enough then, it certainly wasn’t enough now.

 

“Nothing,” I lied. “Nothing at all. We done here?”

 

“Please,” he whispered. I didn’t think he even knew what he was begging for.

 

“No.” My face crumpled, eyes burned, and throat clogged, all reacting to _him, him, him_. “No, it’s over, alright? All of it, it’s over.”

 

He stumbled back as if my words were daggers, and all I could think was  _good, good, good_ \- end this now before they turned into blades. The hollow feeling was stronger than ever, and I wanted to clutch my chest like an old man having a heart attack, gasping for air that wouldn’t help, because there was no way it could be more painful than this. I never wanted to feel this again. I would do anything not to. Even leave him behind.

 

“So, what?” Ryan caught his fingers in his hair, tugging at the chestnut locks. “What now?”

 

“I don’t know,” I admitted, swallowing my pride. “All I know is that...we can’t go back to the way we were.”

 

“Why not?” he asked desperately. “It worked before. We can go back. Come on-”

 

“No!” I shouted, raising my voice for the first time. It was obvious he hadn’t been expecting it because his eyebrows shot up. “We can’t go back because you fucking let me in! You let me in and then set me on fire. If you hadn’t fucking done anything, maybe I could pretend my feelings weren’t there, but now you know and you can’t just ignore the fact that- that-”

 

“I know,” he said. “You’re right. Fuck, I would’ve done this all over again if I had the chance. I hope- I hope you know that.” Despite his clear remorse, I had no commiseration for him. This wasn’t my fault; the second he took it into his own hands it became his, and he ruined it.

 

Ryan had no intentions to apologize, and neither did I, so it was healthier for the both of us just to get the hell away before we destroyed each other further.

 

“There aren’t second chances for stuff like this,” I asserted, though I wasn’t quite sure who I was trying to convince, myself or him.

 

“I get that.” He nodded obediently, dropping his gaze to the floor again.

 

I yearned for him to get frustrated or outraged, anything besides the somber surrender he was displaying to me. It was then that Jon’s plea echoed in my mind. _“Just promise me you won’t hate him,”_ he had said. For some tainted reason I didn’t understand, I wanted Ryan to hate me instead. Maybe it was because if he hated me letting go would be so much easier, or I could convince myself that he never wanted me.

 

That he didn’t fall into my arms after he broke up with Keltie, that he didn’t beg for me to make him feel something, anything. And I did- I really did.

 

Failure has many faces, but mine definitely spat on me on the way out.

 

I drew in a deep breath, steeled myself, then let the words I had kept caged tumble out of my mouth. “I wish I could say we’ll be friends again someday, but I think we made enough promises that we couldn’t keep.”

 

Ryan immediately flinched away from me, just like I knew he would. This was only an argument because I was making it one, as this could’ve easily been civil since he wasn’t fighting back. I didn’t care. I didn’t care that throwing insults and jabs at him only expanded the hole in my chest, and I certainly didn’t care that I was breaking the promise I made to Jon. Shit, of course I cared.

 

Why was I doing this? Right, retribution. What a useless thing that was; it didn’t help and was a waste of passion. All the logic in the world didn’t prevent me from allowing the poison to seep into my words like ink on thin paper, tendrils spreading into every groove and crevice.

 

“I guess- I guess I should get going then.”

 

Ryan tilted his head up to look at me for the first time, and when his hair fell away to reveal his stunning eyes, I realized silent tears were streaming down his face. My fingers curled as I imagined reaching out and brushing them away, whispering words of comfort. The second my eyes dropped to his lips, my breath hitched, and in a moment of weakness I was stepping closer for closure. He didn’t budge. The immortal butterflies were back in my stomach, but they were skeletal, clawing at my insides and urging me forward- it was beautifully depressing.

 

Suddenly, his hand was on my cheek, and before I absorbed that, his lips slotted with mine in a bruising kiss; it was the exact way it was that night, when he had given everything away and I had too much to give. His other hand snaked around my waist and tugged me close, squeezing in a way that only meant goodbye. We just stood there, letting each kiss say what we weren’t brave enough to, and giving ourselves one last taste of what had been. Every time he pulled back to breathe, my lips buzzed with his taste and I had to lean in again. My hands found their way to his face, and my thumbs wiped away his tears, which was both a reassurance and a stern message.

 

“Let go,” I wanted to say. To murmur in his ears until he understood. “You’re free now and you’ve been caged for as long as I can remember. You’re so much bigger than this- than me.”

 

But I said none of that, and just prayed his extraordinary brain was wise enough to know. Know that as much as this stung, neither of us were meant for this; that was unequivocal to me now. Ryan may have made stupid, irrational decisions that hurt more people than they helped, but I didn’t fall for him for no reason. Deep down, underneath his words and his pain, he was ultimately a good person.

 

We clashed because of the electricity in our souls that warned away anyone who got too close to our soft hearts. We were always too similar where it mattered and too different where it didn’t.

 

After our lips stopped moving and they briefly lingered, we parted, breathing in each other’s air, moisture gathering on our skin. He stared into my eyes for a moment longer, the gentlest of forlorn smiles tugging at his lips, then he let his hand fall from my cheek. The tears were still in his waterline, but they didn’t seem to be at risk of falling anytime soon. My hands lowered back to my person, clenching the fabric of my jeans, like if I let go they would jump back to his lean frame.

 

He nodded. I nodded back.

 

He took a step back. I looked away.

 

He turned away. I didn’t stop him.

 

He left the room, shoulders hunched. I stood in place, arms crossed.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Two months later, as I signed the papers to amend the band’s contract, I tried to ignore the letters that were missing. Spencer rubbed my back and took them after I was done, shuffling them into a neat pile for management to take. He sat down next to me and tapped a mindless beat on his knee. I leaned back in the chair that reeked of old pens and cheap coffee and counted the ceiling tiles.

 

“What now?” was all I could manage.

 

“Now,” he shrugged, “we keep going. I think that’s all we can do, right?”

 

I looked out the window of the lonely office. A man in the parking lot was leaning against a car and smoking a cigarette, and if I blurred my vision I could almost see long chestnut hair.

 

My eyes focused and it was just a stranger.

 

“Right.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Well. That’s it. Whew. Thanks for reading this sad piece of simply fiction (or is it?). 
> 
> Kidding, kidding 
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated :)


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